


Clambering Uphill

by redletters



Category: The Lady’s Not For Burning - Christopher Fry
Genre: Blank Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-22
Updated: 2007-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/pseuds/redletters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas Mendip is not so well-brought-up that he can't occupy Jennet with a scene of history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clambering Uphill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aerye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerye/gifts).



> Note after the Open Doors Yuletide import in 2014: This is a very old fic that I'm too embarrassed to reread. If you're reading it, best of luck and I hope it isn't too terrible!
> 
> Thanks to Cordelia Orange and the_alchemist for beta!
> 
> Written for aerye.

[A camp in the Low Countries. JENNET JOURDEMAYNE, seated, watches. THOMAS MENDIP, either twenty or twenty-one, searches his bag. A CAPTAIN enters with the weight of his arms on his shoulders.]

  
CAPTAIN.  
Lucifer!  
  
THOMAS.  
No.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Yes, you there  
With your blooming springtime-face — hey, don't you know  
The sky's too bright for morning eyes like yours?  
And anyway, it's not polite to rise  
Before your elders.  
  
THOMAS.  
Then I'll stay down. Have you  
Seen any gold? I swear they were here  
Somewhere— wait— no, that's just my dashed elan.  
Farewell, the tepid joys of clean clothing  
Or fresh food, or the pleasures—  
  
CAPTAIN.  
First week out?  
  
THOMAS.  
First day. How did you guess?  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Ha! Wait:  
You've yet to take a burbling, halting step  
Into the premier field of your glory. Yes, wait,  
Until you see each armour in the sun  
(Still fresh, most of it, like your fuzzy jaw  
Although we've got a few more dents than you),  
Alight like Michael's rippling sartorius:  
His clean chest gleaming with the salty drops  
Of two days' honest work in digs and duchies.  
It's not a sight to pass by and say, "Oh—"  
  
THOMAS.  
I'm tired of you.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Oh, I'm tired of you, that's what you wouldn't say.  
Just the very thing to not say there, or here, or now.  
Why did you sign the lists, if you weren't  
As panting-hot to smear your face with life  
As all the rest of us?  
  
THOMAS.  
My lord's the man to ask, not me, Captain.  
I follow at his unsmirched velvet hem.  
Of course, you'd have to find him to inquire:  
He may be in that shaded tent yonder,  
Or, more like, he's retreated to the town  
To regroup, plan assault, and pen advance  
Upon the royal coffers. It's a dry day,  
Not made for outdoor work.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Does he know  
The king is in the field, and as poor a man  
As you, or any other coinless loaf?  
  
THOMAS.  
I'm sure my lord cares not, as long as he  
Can sit among the curtains silken draped,  
Sip the sweet cooling wine of prince's taste,  
Imagine these are his, or these, or this  
And sibilantly incline to hear a word  
Minced nicely with the silver knife of wit.  
He'd rather to roll upward and, aspiring,  
Come to rest at the peak of something great;  
But climbing is beyond his ken, and so  
Instead he hops, and leaves me, packless, here.  
Where the devil—? No, I give up. Sound trumpet,  
I've lost my only gold.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
I'm not surprised.  
You left them here where anyone could see.  
You act as though there's nothing past the next  
Turning of the dial hand.  
  
THOMAS.  
This war's  
Altogether too continental for me.  
And so are you.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
I sense distaste.  
  
THOMAS.  
God, yes. I—  
  
CAPTAIN.  
No, I don't believe you, I don't think:  
It's not distaste you say, for you are slow  
And young, too young for dusty weights like this  
To hang drop-shod in your unweary mouth  
To lag your thoughts, retain your words, and altogether  
Halt your enthusiasm, which to be frank  
Should come as naturally to a boy of twenty—  
  
THOMAS.  
Twenty-one—  
  
CAPTAIN.  
As flurries to a squirrel. No, what you've got  
Is a distinct lack of relish, which is not  
Even remotely close to being the same thing.  
Relish; savor; zest; without them, boy,  
You're nothing but an ivory Jacob's-ladder  
Driving the world before you with your dry clattering.  
  
THOMAS.  
Have you finished?  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Twenty. Ha! If that.  
  
THOMAS.  
All this rhapsodic mess of yours has done  
Is make me hungry: and since all we have to eat  
Is worming hardtack, beans, or Flemish silt,  
You've done quite well indeed. My cap's off, sir.  
  
CAPTAIN.  
That's captain to you, boy.  
  
THOMAS.  
I wouldn't have  
Expected any less.  
  
[Alarums.]  
  
And look! My gold!  
  
CAPTAIN.  
Well done, you kit; but now I will to the fight:  
Better die with arms and rule, than fail the right. [Exit.]  
  
THOMAS.  
You would, you sodden lump of clay.  
  
JENNET. [rising]  
But I  
Don't quite understand the point, I fear.  
Unless it was to tell me that you were  
An utterly insufferable, swotty boy  
(And you insult me if you think I hadn't  
Figured out that particular one already),  
What do you mean by this regress in time?  
Surely you don't expect me to believe  
He ended on a couplet.  
  
THOMAS.  
Woman, I swear,  
If ever man consummated in rhyme,  
That man was he. And all I meant to do  
Was to distract you from the throbbing hurt  
In your right foot, you said an hour ago.  
  
JENNET.  
I might have preferred the pain; still,  
Observation breeds understanding,  
And some theories I've developed have been proved.  
The devil told me the bright world will end  
In rhyming verse. I'd rather have it that  
Than any other, equally dreadful trump.  
Yes, with meter and metaphor — polite —  
I'll take the way of we living below.  
  
THOMAS.  
My God, you're quite transformed. It's not a month  
Since I heard you declaim the joys of life,  
Your eagerness to chase the flickering flame  
Across a vasty course you can't make out  
Until— had you even thought of that blasted end?  
  
JENNET.  
Someone else is to blame for that, you know.  
I have enough alchemy to tell that  
Elements don't up and change by themselves.  
Inertia is the proper state of nature:  
It must be an improper maverick,  
A charming quark, to set off transmutation.  
  
THOMAS.  
I don't consider myself charming.  
  
JENNET.  
I speak  
Scientifically. But while you might be strange  
(As certainly you are), your most inherent  
Quality is charm. Improper, I should say.  
  
THOMAS.  
In a short while, I shall become large-headed.  
  
JENNET.  
It's far too late for that.  
  
THOMAS.  
My shining girl—  
  
JENNET.  
We must be near the city. I am not,  
Like you, used to travelling these long days,  
Arising at the coxcomb call to leap  
Astride Apollo, my bronze steed, and cry  
For a groom to gird me, and hitch-gallop  
Twenty miles to Caen before the next white  
Crow can show its colors.  
  
THOMAS.  
No, nor I.  
I've very little experience of actually  
Winning campaigns. Usually at this point  
We'd be at "Retreat; plunder and pillage!"  
  
JENNET.  
We?  
  
THOMAS.  
I mean my regiment.  
I've always found a pub and hunkered down.  
  
JENNET.  
Your quality is not a martial sort.  
  
THOMAS.  
I did the rather least I could.  
  
JENNET.  
Yes, just.  
  
THOMAS.  
But I survived; and now I'm here, speaking  
With you upon all matters of the soul:—  
Of life, of days and nights; of that seashore  
We passed in clouded light near Berwick town.  
We nearly didn't make it out before  
Nimbus tripped over a haystack rock  
And spilled his precious jewels on the main.  
Now ghosts of the grey North Sea knock my knees  
And blow about your skirts: do you recall  
The boat we found that night? Upturned, it barely  
Served as an embanked umbrella to slide  
The drippling moonlight from our huddled cloaks  
And so we paddled off to slanting dawn.  
  
JENNET.  
Now who's talking like whom?  
  
THOMAS.  
You are the strangest quark I've ever met.  
  
JENNET.  
Well, I stand by my earlier judgement.  
  
THOMAS.  
Then shall we go?  
  
JENNET.  
I certainly cannot see any path  
But up.  
  
THOMAS.  
We're in precisely the same place  
We were when we began.  
  
JENNET.  
Yes, as I said.  
  
[Exit THOMAS and JENNET, toward the summit.]


End file.
